Coratina olives
The fierce oil olive of Puglia — intensely bitter, peppery and high in polyphenols.
If you like an olive oil that fights back, the Coratina is your olive. Grown mainly around Bari and Andria in Puglia, in the south-east of Italy, it presses into one of the most robust, bitter and pungent oils in the world — and one of the highest in the antioxidant polyphenols that make olive oil good for you and slow to spoil.
- Origin
- Puglia (Bari/Andria) · Italy
- Type
- Oil olive
- Flavour (oil)
- Bitter, pungent, green
- Polyphenols
- Very high
- Keeps
- Excellent — very stable
- Best for
- Finishing bold dishes, blending
Strength you can taste
Coratina oil is assertive: grassy and green, markedly bitter, with a strong peppery sting at the back of the throat. That intensity is not a flaw — it is the high polyphenol content announcing itself, and it is exactly what gives the oil both its health interest and its long shelf life. It is often blended to add backbone to milder oils, and prized on its own by people who want their oil to be heard.
That throat-catch some people mistake for “a fault” or “too harsh” is precisely the good stuff — the oleocanthal and other polyphenols. A bitter, peppery Coratina is a sign of quality, not a defect. If you have only ever had soft supermarket oil, this one will surprise you.